Passage of the Day - March 14, 2011

Zechariah 7

 ¹In the fourth year of King Darius, the word of the LORD came to Zechariah on the fourth day of the ninth month, which is Chislev.

 ²Now the town of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regemmelech and their men to seek the favor of the LORD,

 ³speaking to the priests who belong to the house of the LORD of hosts, and to the prophets, saying, "Shall I weep in the fifth month and abstain, as I have done these many years?"

 ⁴Then the word of the LORD of hosts came to me, saying,

 ⁵"Say to all the people of the land and to the priests, 'When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months these seventy years, was it actually for Me that you fasted?

 ⁶'When you eat and drink, do you not eat for yourselves and do you not drink for yourselves?

 ⁷'Are not these the words which the LORD proclaimed by the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and prosperous along with its cities around it, and the Negev and the foothills were inhabited?'"

 ⁸Then the word of the LORD came to Zechariah saying,

 ⁹"Thus has the LORD of hosts said, 'Dispense true justice and practice kindness and compassion each to his brother;

 ¹⁰and do not oppress the widow or the orphan, the stranger or the poor; and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another.'

 ¹¹"But they refused to pay attention and turned a stubborn shoulder and stopped their ears from hearing.

 ¹²"They made their hearts like flint so that they could not hear the law and the words which the LORD of hosts had sent by His Spirit through the former prophets; therefore great wrath came from the LORD of hosts.

 ¹³"And just as He called and they would not listen, so they called and I would not listen," says the LORD of hosts;

 ¹⁴"but I scattered them with a storm wind among all the nations whom they have not known Thus the land is desolated behind them so that no one went back and forth, for they made the pleasant land desolate."

The fast of the fifth month was a tradition that was not from scripture.  That doesn't make it wrong OR necessary.  It simply was a tradition.  There is nothing wrong with traditions, it matters to whom the traditions are geared towards.  Take Christmas.  The date of December 25th has nothing to do with the birthdate of Jesus, yet we celebrate it on this day.  Is that wrong?  No.  But how do we celebrate it?  Is it gimme, gimme, gimme, spend, spend, spend, fret, fret, fret, overdo, overdo, overdo?  Or do we focus on the fact that God gave, gave, gave His Son, who paid our price, price, price, to give us peace, peace, peace, and did it all, all, all?  Unless specifically laid out or forbidden in scripture, it doesn't matter what we do.  It does matter why.  It does matter for whom, to whom, and about whom it is done.

Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®,
© Copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation

Used by permission." (http://www.lockman.org/)